If any person or hunter has ever has to aim a rifle at a target in the general direction of the sun or a source of light, the shooter has experienced the problem of sunlight or other light from a source flooding his eye to the point that it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to define the target. With so much light flooding into the eye, the eye can not distinguish the target as all that the shooter sees is the bright light. As the shooter aims the rifle farther and farther away from the source of the light, the target then becomes more and more visible.
It may be possible for the shooter to shade his eyes from the source of light by holding a hand up to block off the offending light rays; however, if the shooter is attempting to aim the gun, both hands are necessary, and thus leaving no hand free to block the sun's rays.
It is obvious that should a shooter aim directly at the sun or the source of the light, or if the target and the sun are within the rifle's telescopic sight field, no means of protection can shield the shooter's eyes from the rays of light.
Now there have been devices to overcome this problem on rifles utilizing scopes. For example, Palmer in U.S. Pat. No. 3,315,362, details an attachment for a telescopic sight comprising a flexible cylinder eyepiece which attaches to the sighting end of the scope and terminates in a cushioned element adapted to engage the shooter's face surrounding the eye. Similarly, Luning, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,390,931, details a similar apparatus with the exception that it confines light emitting from a phosphor screen from illuminating the shooter's face at night times.
Such devices accomplish the purpose of preventing light from entering the shooter's eye except for the light which comes through the telescopic sight, however, such devices suffer from the shortcomings of having the shooter's eye fully engaged by the eyepiece, and severely limit the shooter's vision around the area that the rifle may be aimed at. This can be very important if the shooter is a hunter. In addition, for situations where a hunter must aim the gun and shoot the target all within a very short space of time, such as usually is the case, the aforementioned inventions become quite cumbersome in that instead of just looking through the scope, the hunter must engage the eyepiece with his face while all the time trying to following the moving target. This obviously, becomes very difficult.
In addition, the invention of the above patents obviously do not apply to rifles with open sights as both patents define eyepieces attached to the sighting end of the rifle's scope.
Thus, it is readily apparent that there is need for a means or shield which will block sunlight or other light which would otherwise enter a shooter's eye as he aims his rifle, with or without a telescopic sight, at a target which is in the same general direction as the sun or source of light. In addition, such a means should not interfere with the aiming process, not be of such a type that the shooter would require additional effort or time to aim at the target due to requirements which may be imposed by the device itself.